What tactics will prevent getting hurt in enormous swings?

Guys,

Yesterday the Euro had a 335 pip swing going up enough first to knock out 3 days of people who set their stop right above the previous days high. Only people who set their stop 1 at the top of last weeks bar were spared getting falsely and I say criminally stopped out. And then to rub salt in the wounds, the Euro/USD then at 8am, completely reverses direction and winds up down huge on the day.I was short with my stop above the previous days high on 1 lot and above the 72 hr moving average on the others! I was wiped out of the position faster than a lion devours a steak.So were ALL of you who were in that. Imagine, larceny so greedy that you stop out the longs, the shorts, the day traders, the swing traders and in fact anyone not holding with a 500 point weekly stop got run over both ways. This also happened in ALL the EUR pairs and almost ALL the JPY pairs. This is not going to be the last time. I was waiting months for something screwy to happen to add some spice into this very very boring Forex market. Anyone feel the same as I? That this market went to sleep this last 6-12 months? This means we may see huge "flash crashes" and wild stop outs occurring in the future. And from what I see, when the big boys want to move the market, they can move every JPY pair up the exact same number of days! Look at your charts. Ever see that before in yoru life. Such pre3cision at controlling this market. Do you know that 10 banks control 70% of the volume of this market. I suspect another 10 control 15-20% more. There might be 3 trillion being traded daily but the real players might number 100. That makes for an awfully slow day, a worse week, and the most boring month imaginable, no?

So, how can we capitalize on this?

Here are my opening thoughts. I don't like to stay in a trade less than 6 hours and hopefully several days-2 weeks. Why? I don't like paying the spread 12-20 times a day. Even once a day in and out is over 600 commissions per yr. Per pair! Not for me. So short time frames (under 60m are out.) Yet, if we remain traders of daily bars, which I prefer, look at how we get whipsawed and stopped. I am well ahead for this year using a system that places its stop 1 pip above the previous days high. But don't think I do not know, the market makers know thats exactly how many swing and daily chart traders will do it and they are just waiting for that free lunch maybe once a week or once every 2 or 3. Thing is, Im tired of being some bodys dinner for free. Yesterday i assure you, the brokers who take sides in a position had the best day they ever had in many yrs. They destroyed all their customers at once. And this may just be why systems suddenly stop working and "pro's" go back to driving a cab.

So, what is a good first start to devise a system to either bypass this or take advantage and get in at the top of these false spikes? These guys cant change their minds when they set something in motion. Our advantage is, we can. It took them 6-8 hrs to pull that debacle of yesterday off with all the EUR and JPY pairs at one time!!!! How could that not be planned out way ahead of time. The scam of the year, IMHO.

Idea's anyone?

yesterdays move was obvious, If you read the higher tf trend and s/r then there was nothing too unexpected by the direction, only the speed of the move and its magnitude, EJ was clearly long then short, if you know how to read the price action..

if you were already in short and you saw fridays close daily was telling you we were likely to tap a weekly s/r before continuing down,

so it was long ej watching daily levels as we go for the weekly short to kick back in... we knew most likely it was gonna come at a weekly level, but we watch dailies on the way there

EU daily and weekly.. was just a normal price action move from sr to sr

Staying out of a market will prevent you from getting hurt. I focus exclusively on very high probability trades, soemtimes I may not enter for a week. Its all about patience and mental discipline and timing.

I can agree with this. Carelessness costs, and jumping into ill-researched positions rarely ends well.

My trades vary in length between several days to several months, but I find its absolutely core to my trading that I look at every single time frame before I make a trade. That may seem really simple, and something which all traders do, but reading some of the things ive read on here from others makes me doubt that and I feel it would go a long way to preventing people falling to some of the traps they do.

Regardless whether you trade on M1, M15, H1, H4, D1, W1 or M1, the fact is eveything past an hourly chart up to a monthly is incredibly useful just to observe current trends and to get a better picture of where a currency stands. I especially emphasise the importance of daily, weekly and monthly charts. What may look like a delicious opportunity in M5 may turn out to be funky price action at a historic price pivot zone on W1, which could leave you making a trade at a very dangerous point.

Just to use a recent example:

AUD/USD. AUD is approaching a really important ppz (~1.015) where many times price swings have happened. Ive observed quite a few traders make otherwise solid trades on an M5 and M15 only to be confused by price action, and by the currency pairs reception of news. Seeing and identifying these factors on larger time frames (in this case, on a weekly chart) will help not being taken for a ride by unexpected influences.

Excellent post

Your question is the answer to your question. Stops is the key....there are enough good information here in FF about stops (hunting). Although this information can either be a solution or a problem for you. From the looks of it, seems more like a problem.

On your comment about brokers, I am pretty sure they are not out to destroy their customers. What kind of business strive on destroying their customers ?

Anyway thanks for the liquidity. just kidding.....

Re: attached chart. Circle number 4 is the market activity that you are complaining about. The PA in circle 4 has a lot in common with circles 1-3. Nothing immoral or illegal occurred on Monday. In fact, many traders made a lot of money by anticipating the thing you are complaining about. My first reaction to your post/thread was to become angry, but I though this was the best way to show you that you need to work harder at being a better trader, and you need to work on all aspects of becoming a trader. For new traders who stumble across this thread, please know that the market/your broker is not out to get you.